(careful, it is about temperaments)

[David Love]

Let's not parse words.  I think my meaning was clear.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Israel Stein
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 7:52 AM
To: pianotech@ptg.org
Subject: RE: (careful, it is about temperaments)

At 09:17 AM 1/12/2006, "David Love" <davidlovepianos@comcast.net> wrote:
>Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 08:16:22 -0800
>From: "David Love" <davidlovepianos@comcast.net>
>To: "'An open list  for piano technicians'" <pianotech@ptg.org>
>Subject: RE: (careful, it is about temperaments)
>Message-ID: <001601c61793$89f676a0$6401a8c0@DFCX0Y11>
>In-Reply-To: <7.0.0.10.2.20060112060841.05cbcb58@comcast.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain;
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>
>I think you have gone a bit far afield.  Nobody is arguing the
"correctness"
>of using WT or not.  The issue is whether or not the music must be heard in
>WT to capture the intent of the composer.
>
>David Love
>davidlovepianos@comcast.net

Reread your message, David, and see where you are writing about 
what's "authentic" and what isn't, and then we can argue about who 
has gone far afield. In any case, "intent of the composer" is 
precisely what is addressed in my message. Assuming that we can 
discern it from a composer's score and other writings and records of 
the composer's action, the composer's intent is to evoke certain 
feelings and reactions in the listener by using the musical 
vocabulary of his time and place. The problem is that his audience is 
steeped in that same musical vocabulary - so the intention is 
fulfilled by faithfully imitating whatever that composer would do. 
What we are doing, however, is playing the music "in translation" - 
by musicians who are , like it or not, steeped in the Romantic and 
post-Romantic musical vocabulary, to audiences whose tastes are 
pretty much set by exposure to this musical vocabulary, on 
instruments and in venues where the musical devices available to and 
envisioned by 17th through 19th century composers are way too subtle 
to be very effective. So today's performers must find ways to achieve 
the composer's intent in a musical language and using devices that 
work in today's context - while maintaining some sort of fidelity to 
the composer's vision. (This latter, by the way, is - ironically - 
something that the composers in question did not bother with when 
dealing with music of their predecessors. Mozart rearranged Handel's 
Messiah to suit his audience's tastes when he conducted it, rather 
than being faithful to the original score.)

As for temperament - whether or not Well temperaments were in use in 
the classical era - in today's musical context it would not be a very 
useful device to further the composer's vision, since it is not part 
of the musical vocabulary of most musicians and audiences. As has 
been extensively written here, most pianists cannot tell the 
difference, and neither can audiences. Besides, the size of todays 
concert venues and the tuning distortions required by the 
inharmonicity of the modern piano do tend to obscure the subtleties 
of Historical tunings to all but the well trained ears of Ed Foote 
and others like him (or should I say us..) So playing Mozart on a 
Steinway D in Avery Fisher Hall in Valotti/Young is probably not the 
most effective expressive device in today's musical culture to 
fulfill a composer's "intent". Today's audiences respond to 
expressive devices based on dynamics and emphasis - not to subtleties 
of tuning. Which could be one more reason why those performers who 
might have been aware of the temperament issue simply did not bother 
with it. In today's musical culture HT is definitely an acquired 
taste (or listening skill?)...

Which is not to say that performers who feel that HT enhances their 
understanding of the music and aids the performance value should not 
work with it. Just that in the context of public performance it has 
little relevance to today's musical culture. This, of course, can 
change (but I won't hold my breath).

Israel Stein


>-----Original Message-----
>From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf
>Of Israel Stein
>Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 7:30 AM
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: (careful, it is about temperaments)
>
>Before we get too far afield into obsolete ideas...
>
>It is interesting to note that notion of "authenticity" has lately
>pretty much fallen into disgrace even in the Historically Informed
>Performance (formerly known as Early Music) field. There is a tacit
>acknowledgement that the idea of exact fidelity to the notions and
>practices of the time in which the music was written is both
>impossible and in many ways undesirable. After all, there is no way
>we can hear the music as played by Beethoven and Mozart. On the other
>hand, we do not wish to duplicate the very low technical and musical
>standards of the time - poorly maintained instruments,  poorly
>trained and under-rehearsed musicians, small, darkly lit
>venues...  Today's musicians and audiences are, after all, steeped in
>today's musical values and today's musical standards, and there is so
>much any of them are willing to accept or learn to appreciate of past
>practices - and that also applies to temperaments.
>
>Any notion of "authenticity" as applied to performance of Classical
>era music on the modern piano is patently ridiculous - anyone
>familiar with pianos of that era can attest to the fact that they are
>very, very different musical instruments, both lacking many of the
>capabilities of the modern instruments (in terms of sonority and
>dynamic range) and having some that the modern instrument lost (in
>terms of color, register differences, clarity/transparency,
>articulation and velocity). Just the tremendous increase in
>inharmonicity from the older instrument to the newer one makes any
>comparison between WT on the Beethoven era Streicher and WT on a
>Steinway pretty much apples and oranges...
>
>In terms of historicity, we have two conflicting considerations here.
>The music was written in the era of the older temperaments, but the
>rise of the modern, high-tension piano is pretty much contemporaneous
>with the adoption of the Equal Temperament. So which is more
>"historically correct" - fidelity to the composer's practices (who
>used different instruments) or fidelity to today's instrument's
>historical niche? Which is why the "authenticity" argument leads nowhere.
>
>So where does that leave us? Basically, where the Historically
>Informed Performance stream of music now hangs its hat. There is an
>acceptance of the notion that no single way of performing music is
>"correct" - music is a living, changing thing, and every performance
>and performer brings something to it, no matter what degree of
>historical "fidelity" they try to adhere to - including all the
>baggage from the musical practices of the  intervening centuries.
>Audiences are subject to the same baggage... Therefore:
>
>The use of earlier temperaments on the modern piano is neither right
>nor wrong - it simply is an additional tool in the arsenal of the
>musician, an additional dimension of the music to be explored and
>adopted to the extent that it can find an audience. The same way as
>the use of early instruments (or replicas) and historical notions
>about ornamentation, vocal technique, dynamics, vibrato and other
>performance techniques have found an audience. (And the insights
>gleaned from these historically based musical practices have come to
>influence the "mainstream" music field - through the medium of such
>musicians as Paul Badura-Skoda and Peter Serkin (on piano), Roger
>Norrington and John Elliott Gardner (orchestrally) or the many fine
>vocalists and instrumentalists who today perform in both fields...)
>
> >One thing to consider in all this (and I've probably exhausted my
thoughts)
> >is what the major pianist/scholars are doing in this respect.  Pianists
>like
> >Brendl, Schnabel, Perahia, and most of not virtually all others who pour
> >over original source material, biographies, writings, documents in order
to
> >glean that small little detail that adds to their commitment to a more
> >authentic interpretation of the music as conceived by the composer.  Of
all
> >these people it seems (and I say this with the caveat that I have not
> >actually done the research) that most if not all of them, when choosing
to
> >record/perform, opt for ET.
>
>Any performing musician who does historical research will adopt those
>practices that suit his or her preferences, and reject others. So I
>am not impressed. Besides, it is impossible to tell whether or not
>Brendel, Schnabel or Perahia ever were aware of the temperament issue
>- in mainstream musical circles the notion that Well temperament and
>Equal temperament are one and the same held sway well into the late
>20th century, and many very fine musicians still don't know the
>difference - temperament just isn't on their radar screen. Intonation
>issues in general are of little interest to pianists - they don't
>deal with intonation, we do it for them, so many never really develop
>an ear for it...
>
> >While there may be a few who, to their credit,
> >are exploring these pieces in the temperaments of the times, they are a
> >stark minority.  To suggest that the leading interpreters of classical
>music
> >of the last century take such pains for authenticity while rejecting the,
>we
> >assume, prevailing tuning style of the times forces you to the conclusion
> >that they either consciously chose to reject it because it wasn't in
their
> >view relevant to the music and authentic interpretation, or that they
> >are/were ignorant, biased or, as Bremmer suggests, did it for some
strange
> >business reason.  Considering the extent to which they research these
>issues
> >and their apparent commitment to the original intent of the composers
leads
> >me to the conclusion that the tuning style was rejected consciously and
>that
> >it was not relevant, in their view, to an authentic and musical
> >interpretation.  Who am I to argue?  If there is real evidence to the
> >contrary, I'm open to hearing it.



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